Loews Corporation (L) Q4 2017 Earnings Conference Call Transcript

Loews Corp. (L -0.52%) (CNA -1.29%) (DO) (BWP)

Q4 2017 Earnings Conference Call
February 12, 2018, 11:00 a.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning. My name is Christy, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Loews Corporation Q4 2017 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. [Operator instructions]

Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Mary Skafidas. Please go ahead.

Mary Skafidas -- Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications

Thank you, Christy. Good morning, everyone. A copy of the Loews earnings release, earnings supplement, and company overview may be found on our website, loews.com.

On the call this morning, we have our Chief Executive Officer, Jim Tisch, and our Chief Financial Officer, David Edelson. Following our prepared remarks this morning, we will have a question-and-answer session.

Before we begin, however, I will remind you that this conference call might include statements that are forward-looking in nature. Actual results achieved by the company may differ materially from those made or implied in any forward-looking statements due to a wide range of risks, uncertainties, including those set forth in our SEC filings.

Forward-looking statements reflect circumstances at the time they are made. The company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. This disclaimer is only a brief summary of the company's statutory forward-looking statements disclaimer, which is included in the company's filings with the SEC. During the call today, we might also discuss non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our security filings and earnings supplement for a reconciliation to the most comparable GAAP measures.

In a few minutes, our CFO, David Edelson, will walk you through the key drivers for the quarter. Before he does, Jim Tisch, our CEO, will kick off the call. Jim, over to you.

James S. Tisch -- Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Mary. Loews had a strong quarter and a good year, with each of our subsidiaries contributing to our overall success. Our CFO, David Edelson, will go into the details about our results later in the call, as well as discussing the implications of the recently passed tax cuts for Loews and our subsidiaries. Before he does, however, I'd like to talk about CNA and share repurchases.

CNA has steadily improved over the past 15 years under a series of strong leadership teams. The company has taken steps to focus on its core competencies in commercial property casualty insurance by transforming itself from a not-so-focused multiline insurance company into a highly focused commercial property casualty company. This transformation obviously didn't happen overnight, and in fact it required enormous effort and discipline by the management teams at both CNA and Loews.

Specifically, from 1999-2010, CNA disposed of a number of its businesses, including reinsurance, personal automobile insurance, life insurance, and group health. Additionally, the company reinsured its asbestos and pollution liabilities to reduce balance sheet risk. Since joining the company in November 2016 as CEO, Dino Robusto has turbocharged CNA's evolution. Under his leadership, the CNA team has been pulling a number of levers to improve underwriting performance. They have enhanced risk selection, retooled their claims department, and continued to upgrade their underwriting talent.

CNA has provided a stable market for agents and brokers, a factor in the company's ability to strengthen its relationships with distributors in a time of industry change. The company has focused intently on reducing its expense ratio while also investing in the business. Dino and the team at CNA believe that there is even more room for improvement in each of these areas, and we agree.

Also, CNA continues to actively manage its long-term care book of business, mitigating risk by diligently managing claims and attaining rate increases from state regulators when necessary. Additionally, CNA is exploring new strategies to lessen the effects of rate increases on policy holders.

On the talent front, CNA added significantly to its bench in 2017, across many areas, including underwriting, technology, operations, and claims. All of these new senior executives are highly successful industry veterans with outstanding track records and expertise.

Earlier today, in light of CNA's 2017 results, its fortress balance sheet, and the CNA board's outlook, CNA announced a $0.30 quarterly dividend, as well as a $2.00 Special dividend. In March of this year, Loews will have received $558 million in dividends from CNA. And, over the last four years, including the upcoming March dividend payment, Loews will have received $3.2 billion in dividends from CNA.

As we look back over the last decade, CAN's success comes as no surprise to Loews. Although we understood that it would take time and lots of hard work to turn CNA around, we had a vision for what the company could be and held steadfast to that vision. Also, and very importantly, we were able to recruit the right CEO for each stage of CNA's evolution. To sum up, we believe that the company is poised to continue profitably and responsibly grow its business and that, moving forward, CNA can and will deliver even stronger operating results.

Moving on from CNA, I want to give a quick update on share repurchases. In the fourth quarter of 2017, we repurchased $4.6 billion Loews shares at a cost of about $230 million. This trend continued into the first quarter of 2018 when we purchased another $4.3 million shares through February 9th. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, we could've bought more shares over the last two years. However, since the third quarter, we've bought back almost nine million shares, representing almost 3% of the company.

We began repurchasing our stock because of the wide discount between the stock price and our assessment of the intrinsic sum-of-the-parts valuations. Additionally, we believe that CNA will continue to grow and prosper and that the outlook for our four other businesses is improving.

Looking beyond the past year or two, in the past decade, we have acquired almost 40% of our outstanding shares, continuing our nearly half century practice of substantial share repurchases. And now, I'd like to turn the call over to David.

David B. Edelson -- Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Jim, and good morning, everyone. We reported fourth quarter net income of $481 million, or $1.43 per share, up from $290 million, or $0.86 per share in last year's fourth quarter. Included in our fourth quarter net income was a $200 million net benefit related to the passage in December of the Tax Cut & Jobs Act. The benefit, which had no cash impact, stemmed largely from the remeasurement of our net deferred tax liability. Absent the $200 million benefit, our net income was $281 million, or $0.83 per share, down $9 million from last year's fourth quarter.

Before I discuss the drivers of fourth quarter net income, I'd like to draw your attention to Page 7 of our earnings release and Page 5 of our earnings supplement, where we show the impact of tax reform by reporting segment for the fourth quarter and full year.

Let me briefly summarize the impact by segment. CNA booked a charge in the fourth quarter as it wrote down its deferred tax asset due to the lower tax rate. In 2018 and beyond, tax reform should be quite positive for CNA. For Diamond itself, tax reform had offsetting impacts. The company benefited as it wrote down its deferred tax liability because of the lower tax rate, while it also took a charge for the one-time mandatory deemed repatriation of foreign earnings. I would note that this charge had no cash impact.

At the Loews level, however, we did book a charge in the Diamond segment, reflecting the impact of changing tax rates on the differential between our book basis and tax basis in diamond. As a reminder, diamond is not included in our consolidated tax return. For boardwalk, Loews booked a substantial benefit as the lower tax rate caused us to write down the deferred tax liability we had built up over the past decade from Boardwalk's capital projects. And for Loews Hotels, we also benefited from the lower tax rate through the writedown of a deferred tax liability. Going forward, excluding any changes in marketplace behavior, corporate tax reform, especially the reduction in the federal corporate rate, should be positive for Loews on a consolidated basis.

Turning to the quarter, rather than plow through each segment's year-over-year quarterly variance, let me instead highlight the key drivers of fourth quarter earnings and what caused the slight decline from Q4 2016. These highlights will exclude the previously noted impact of tax reform.

Diamond Offshore drove our slight year-to-year earnings decline with net income contribution down $74 million from Q4 2016. Contract drilling revenues were up 12% and rig margin declined substantially, largely due to fewer rigs working and lower day rates on recontracted rigs. In addition, during the quarter, the company impaired one of its rigs and booked restructuring and separation costs as it continues to [audio glitch] expense base.

On the bright side, CNA had a strong quarter to top off a strong year. Its quarterly net income contribution was up $54 million year-over-year, driven mainly by a substantial increase in underwriting income. CNA posted a combined ratio of 94 in Q4 2017, down from 99.9 in last year's fourth quarter. As a reminder, when it comes to combined ratios, lower is better. Excluding catastrophe losses and prior year development, the underlying combined ratio improved from 98.3 to 95.8. And, for the full year, the underlying combined ratio was 95.5, down 2.4 points from 97.9 in 2016.

Jim mentioned the focus at CAN on underwriting excellence as the key lever to improving underwriting profitability. The fourth quarter and full year combined ratios demonstrate the progress being made.

Another bright spot was Loews Hotels, which posted net income of $13 million in Q4, up from $5 million last year. The joint ventures at the Universal Orlando Resort posted excellent results, as did the Loews Miami Beach, which was just completing a renovation during last year's fourth quarter. As Jim outlined during last quarter's remarks, Loews Hotels appears to be hitting its stride operationally and strategically.

Boardwalk's contribution to our net income was essentially flat on the quarter, as were the earnings generated by the parent company investment portfolio. Corporate, which includes our newest subsidiary consolidated container, improved versus the prior year, largely due to the timing of compensation accruals.

Let me now turn to a brief review of the drivers of our full year results. Loews reported 2017 net income of $1.16 billion, or $3.45 per share, up from $654 million, or $1.93 per share last year. Excluding the $200 million net benefit related to tax reform, our net income was $964 million, or $2.86 per share, up $310 million from the prior year.

Again, rather than walk through each segment in detail, let me highlight a few key drivers of the substantial year-over-year increase. Lower rig impairments at Diamond Offshore accounted for $235 million of the earnings improvement. Excluding impairments, Diamond's earnings contribution declined $40 million year-over-year, reflecting the weaker operating environment and some unusual items. CNA, in the aggregate, accounted for $105 million of the increase, attributable mainly to improvements in non-cat underwriting income and life and group results. Additionally, 2016 results were impacted by adverse development related to the 2010 loss portfolio transfer.

Net investment income and realized gains were also up over the prior year. Partially offsetting these improvements were elevated catastrophe losses in 2017, given the high incidence of natural catastrophes during the year. Loews Hotels contributed to the net income increase thanks to improving operating performance and a gain on the sale of a joint venture hotel property in 2017.

Boardwalk's net income contribution was essentially flat year-over-year, however, absent a loss Boardwalk took in 2017 on the sale of a processing facility, its net income contribution would've been up $12 million. Parent company net investment income was flat year-over-year and the elevated costs in corporate and other for full year 2017 are almost entirely attributable to costs incurred in connection with the acquisition of Consolidated Container.

We continue to maintain an extremely strong and liquid balance sheet. At year end, the parent company portfolio totaled $4.9 billion with 57% in cash and equivalents, 20% in LP investments, 13% fixed maturities, and 10% marketable equity securities. During the fourth quarter, we received $86 million in dividends from our subsidiaries, $73 million from CNA and $13 million from Boardwalk. For the full year, we received total dividends of $804 million from CNA and Boardwalk, with CNA contributing the lion's share of that amount.

Today, CNA declared a $2.00 per share special dividend in addition to its regular $0.30 quarterly dividend. Combining the two, Loews will receive approximately $560 million in dividends from CNA this quarter. As Jim mentioned, we repurchased 4.6 million shares in the fourth quarter for $231 million dollars. Since year-end, we have repurchased an additional 4.3 million shares for $218 million. Shares outstanding, adjusted for all share repurchase activity, currently stand at around $328 million.

I will now hand the call back to Jim.

James S. Tisch -- Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, David. Before I turn the call back to Mary, I want to reflect on the fact that one of the most important responsibilities that we have at Loews is a selection of CEOs for our underlying businesses. I cannot think of a time in Loews' history where we have had a more talented and effective group of such individuals. I've already mentioned Dino Robusto's supercharged performance at CNA. Needless to say, we are thrilled with his leadership and the direction in which he's taking the company.

All of our CEOs are equally outstanding. Marc Edwards at Diamond continues to expertly steer the company through a protracted downturn in the offshore drilling industry, maintaining Diamond's financial stability while differentiating the company from its competition.

Stan Horton at Boardwalk is one of the best CEOs in the midstream market with his strategic vision and deep industry knowledge, Boardwalk is working to mitigate its recontracting risks while adding profitable organic growth projects.

Sean Fallmann, the CEO our newest subsidiary, CCC, has demonstrated his forward-looking approach and extensive expertise in the packaging industry. And, we have great expectations for his leadership of the company. Finally, we have the highest level of confidence in Jon Tisch, the CEO of Loews Hotels. Under Jon, Loews Hotels has embarked upon a new strategic direction by focusing on what we do best, group travel and immersive destinations.

While Loews is a holding company, we don't have a lot of bureaucracy. We put the right people in leadership positions at our subsidiaries and let them do their jobs. Where we have engaged with our subsidiaries are the areas where we think we can add value, such as major capital allocation decisions, accessing the capital markets, and the ratification of our subsidiaries mid- to long-term strategies. This approach has served Loews shareholders very well over the past 50 years and we expect it to continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

And now, back to Mary.

Mary Skafidas -- Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications

Thank you, Jim.

...

Christy, we're ready for the question and answer portion of the call.

Questions and Answers:

Operator

Thank you. [Operator instructions] Your first question is from Michael Millman with Millman Research.

Michael Millman -- Millman Research Associates -- Analyst

Thank you. I want to talk about your intrinsic value. What's that based on? Related to that, you have, for the past 12 months or more, said that you thought the equity market was too high and therefore you didn't want to buy back shares. The market is higher, yet you bought back shares. Related to that, the company, over the past several months, has bought a lot of GE, for example. I wondered if you thought that either the market was going up even more or GE was hugely undervalued.

James S. Tisch -- Chief Executive Officer

Well, I don't want to comment on the stock price of General Electric. There are lots of people that are doing it and I don't think it's my place, as a director, to be doing that. With respect to Loews, I mentioned specifically in my remarks that we look at the intrinsic sum-of-the-parts value. That means we look at what we think are the values of each of our subsidiaries.

We take a lot into account in doing that. We look at what the market price in the subsidiaries are. We look at what the prospects are. We try to assess whether we think the market is right or wrong in its assessment of the value of the companies. We look at the value of our nonpublic subsidiaries -- hotels, CCC, and the Boardwalk general partner -- and we put all of that into our thinking and calculations and come out with a value that we think the whole company is worth.

And, when the company gets the right level of discount, then we feel comfortable buying the shares. Starting in the fourth quarter, we felt comfortable doing that.

Michael Millman -- Millman Research Associates -- Analyst

So, your comfort was, to some extent -- the difference was based upon what the market was doing, thus I assume that you thought that the market price was reasonable, no longer overpriced. Is that a fair assumption of what you're saying?

James S. Tisch -- Chief Executive Officer

Do not mistake our repurchase of Loews shares for giving any guidance as to our view of the level of the stock market. I'm not making any statement about that. We just felt comfortable repurchasing our own shares at these levels.

Michael Millman -- Millman Research Associates -- Analyst

I see. On DO, the prices for oil are going up. Are you seeing any demand for drilling or are those prices really based upon reduction in production?

James S. Tisch -- Chief Executive Officer

In fact, we are seeing just the beginning of some green shoots in the offshore drilling garden. We're seeing it specifically for more rigs. We're seeing it in Asia and Australia and also in the North Sea. I think there was extensive scrapping of rigs in that space and then just a little bit of increase in demand. The demand is there, I think, because the projects where we're seeing work are development projects where there can be a quick payback to the capital investment in the project.

My strong guess is that, in the coming year, we're also going to start to see a pick up in inquiry for drill ships, which generally tend to do work that takes longer to generate cash returns for the oil companies. But, there is no doubt that they have seriously underinvested in productive oil capacity and I think the move up in oil prices reflects that underinvestment in productive capacity. My general guess is that oil will continue to move up, tempting oil companies to start to spend more on their exploration and production.

Michael Millman -- Millman Research Associates -- Analyst

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Your next question comes from Josh Shanker with Deutsche Bank.

Josh D. Shanker -- Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. -- Analyst

Thank you. Jim, can we talk a little about dividends from Consolidated Container, whether or not you want them to reinvest their earnings into the company and who pays for both arms of that business as it goes forward?

James S. Tisch -- Chief Executive Officer

CCC is doing very well. They have their own development people that go out and look for deals. There are two that are in the process of being done now. CCC will be able to finance those transactions, with its own balance sheet, and using the loan that was used to purchase CCC. So, we do not anticipate that the current transactions under consideration will rely on the Loews treasury for financing.

David B. Edelson -- Chief Financial Officer

Josh, I would just remind you that when -- I think in our second quarter call, when we first talked about CCC, we mentioned that we did not expect to receive dividends from CCC initially because we expected them to use their cash flow to either pay down debt or do these sorts or bolt-on acquisitions.

Josh D. Shanker -- Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. -- Analyst

Are there some acquisitions that are large in nature that would require you to loan further money to CCC to do them, or the strategy is that they'll all be self-financed?

James S. Tisch -- Chief Executive Officer

No, it's possible that there could be acquisitions that would require some equity funding from Loews. But, we're very comfortable doing that. We have a lot of confidence in the management, in the company, and the industry.

Josh D. Shanker -- Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. -- Analyst

When do you think that you would look to call the investment mature such that you'll receive dividends from it?

James S. Tisch -- Chief Executive Officer

I don't know. We've got to see what's available in the marketplace. We have to see how their own organic growth is going. There are just an awful lot of factors. But, I do know we're pleased with where CCC is, it's position in the industry, the maturity of its management, and the opportunity set that they're seeing. But, just because there's an opportunity set doesn't necessarily mean that transactions will get completed. But, they're working hard to do that.

David B. Edelson -- Chief Financial Officer

But, they can use their free cash flow to invest at attractive returns on invested capital. We're happy to have them do that.

Josh D. Shanker -- Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. -- Analyst

When I look at non-core -- non mostly owned companies -- take CCC, Hotels, CNA, Boardwalk, and Diamond out of the picture -- do you have any thoughts on how I might benchmark performance for the Loews investment portfolio? Any recommendations to track performance over time and whether you're doing a good job or whatnot?

James S. Tisch -- Chief Executive Officer

Let's talk about what we have in the Loews portfolio. We have $250 million of equities. We have another $1 billion or so of hedge funds. My guess is it's very difficult for you as an investor to be able to track those, but I can tell you that their performance is doing reasonably well. Our equity this past year, I think, exceeded the S&P 500 better than a lot of mutual funds I know. We are very, very comfortable and pleased with our asset managers.

Josh D. Shanker -- Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. -- Analyst

Would you be interested in providing disclosure that would help us track it over time? Is there any way you think we can play with the numbers you give us to track it?

James S. Tisch -- Chief Executive Officer

Josh, we're a $15 billion company. We have a portfolio of over $50 billion. You're asking us to provide more disclosure on a $250 million equity portfolio. That sounds crazy to me.

Josh D. Shanker -- Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. -- Analyst

I look at it, though, that there are billions of dollars of cash to manage on the balance sheet, though.

David B. Edelson -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, but remember, on average, let's say -- now, we're at 57, but 60-65% of it has been cash and equivalent. So, you know the return we're getting on that. So, when you look at the investment income generated by the parent company, if you wanted to, you can assume what we're earning on our cash and then intuit what the earnings are on the remainder.

Josh D. Shanker -- Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. -- Analyst

Alright. I'll give it a try. Thank you very much for the answers.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Bob Glasspiegel with Janney.

Robert Glasspiegel -- Janney Montgomery Scott LLC -- Analyst

Good morning, Loews.

James S. Tisch -- Chief Executive Officer

Good morning, Janney.

Robert Glasspiegel -- Janney Montgomery Scott LLC -- Analyst

The hotels, you're excited about the strategic direction. You had a really nice earnings and EBITDA improvement. I know the earnings don't always match the underlying dynamics in that business, but are we in a position where we're going to start to see similar sort of growth as we had this quarter? It seems like the tax rate will be able to help your after-tax earnings. Just some general comments about where we're going from a reported basis and what are the strategic positives that Jon is printing?

David B. Edelson -- Chief Financial Officer

Well, you're talking about hotels specifically, Bob?

Robert Glasspiegel -- Janney Montgomery Scott LLC -- Analyst

Hotels, yes.

David B. Edelson -- Chief Financial Officer

You saw the quarter and the year. We've talked in the past, and you can see in the material that we put out today that we have a number of hotels in the offing in Kansas City, Arlington, St. Louis, and Orlando itself -- again, adding to the Universal Orlando joint venture. We only have one new hotel opening in 2018 and that's a hotel at Universal Orlando. So, the benefit of some of the exciting developments under way won't be shown in our financial statements for another few years. You'll see the opening dates on those properties.

And, of course, there are preopening expenses and those sorts of things associated with them as well. Yes, we're building momentum, but always tempered by the fact that some of these growth projects are a couple of years out.

James S. Tisch -- Chief Executive Officer

To add some depth to that, in my comments I said that we're focusing on what we do best at Loews Hotels -- group travel and immersive destinations. Kansas City is all about group travel. We're going to have an 800-room hotel alongside the Kansas City Convention Center. We will be the newest hotel in Kansas City in decades, newest convention hotel. We expect that hotel to do very well as a major regional convention center hotel. We think the demand is built in by the location and the newness of the hotel.

In Arlington, St. Louis, and Orlando, that's all about immersive destinations. Those are venues where we believe people will naturally gravitate, want to go to. For all of those, we see the hotels that we're building as hotels that can cater to the people that are coming to these locations. This strategy has been proven to us many times over in Orlando and Miami Beach, where we are able to achieve -- especially in Orlando -- occupancy rates and room rates that are substantially above what is available to others in the markets.

We think there is a good opportunity for that to occur in the other immersive destinations in which we're building. The problem is that you can't build a hotel overnight. It takes some time, and so these hotels won't be coming online in '18. Some of them will just be starting up in 2019, so it will take some time to show up in the numbers.

Robert Glasspiegel -- Janney Montgomery Scott LLC -- Analyst

Good, long answer. I appreciate it. Tax rate does go down to 20s, or is there something I should be thinking about differently?

David B. Edelson -- Chief Financial Officer

As you know, we're consolidated with all but Diamond, so I think we do benefit from the lowering of the corporate tax rate. But, CNA is a big piece of that and I think you understand what its tax position is. That then consolidated into ours.

Robert Glasspiegel -- Janney Montgomery Scott LLC -- Analyst

I was just talking about hotels.

David B. Edelson -- Chief Financial Officer

I'm sorry. Hotels? Yes.

Robert Glasspiegel -- Janney Montgomery Scott LLC -- Analyst

I think it's been 30s and it should go down to --

David B. Edelson -- Chief Financial Officer

Well, it's also impacted by state and local taxes and the jurisdictions where it operates. It's not just a pure federal rate.

Robert Glasspiegel -- Janney Montgomery Scott LLC -- Analyst

Okay. Well, it hasn't been running higher than 35 as best I can determine. It's been low 30s, but maybe I'm looking at it incorrectly. I appreciate all your answers. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, there are no further questions. I'll turn the call back to Mary Skafidas for any additional or closing remarks.

Mary Skafidas -- Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications

Thanks, Christy, and thanks to all of you for your continued interest. A replay will be available on our website, loews.com, in approximately two hours. That concludes Loews' call for today.

...

Operator

Thank you. This does conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

Duration: 37 minutes

Call participants:

Mary Skafidas -- Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications

James S. Tisch -- Chief Executive Officer

David B. Edelson -- Chief Financial Officer

Josh D. Shanker -- Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. -- Analyst

Robert Glasspiegel -- Janney Montgomery Scott LLC -- Analyst

Michael Millman -- Millman Research Associates -- Analyst

 

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